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Cameron calls 2016 ‘course correction’ for U.S. and world
The year 2016 has brought about an inordinate share of historic events. Brexit in Britain. The election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. A referendum for government reform in Italy.
Addressing “The Historic Events of 2016 and Where We Go From Here,” former British Prime Minister David Cameron told a DePauw University audience Tuesday afternoon that it all depends “on what political leaders do next.”
“People are going to write about this movement of unhappiness and concern about the state of the world,” Cameron said. “I think you can see that in the British vote it was a mixture of economics and cultural arguments. I think your situation is quite similar.”
The situation in Italy, he said, is “more connected to the Euro.”
“But ultimately,” Cameron reasoned in presenting an Ubben Lecture address in Neal Fieldhouse of the Lilly Center for Physical Education at DePauw, “how 2016 goes down in history will depend on what political leaders do next. If they put their heads in the sand and say, ‘well, this will pass, and we’ll just carry on the way we are,’ then 2016 will not be seen as a real watershed.
“If our democracies are flexible enough and our leaders are aware enough, they will course correct, as I put it, the problems that we face.”
If that’s the case, Cameron said, we will see a greater emphasis on trying to help “those who have been economically left behind.”
Giving his first major address since resigning as prime minister in June, Cameron said Britain now has a $10 minimum wage, and he believes higher wages are going to be seen “right across the Western World.”
“I think you’re going to see an emphasis on education and skills and training, apprenticeships,” Cameron added, “to try to help people become included in the growing world economy that they’re in.”
And if all that is indeed correct, Cameron believes 2016 will be remembered “as a moment of course correction rather than a moment of fundamental change.”
“But if leaders don’t take that approach,” he said, “particularly in Europe, it could go down as something quite different.”
The combination of the Trump election and the Brexit referendum, Cameron reasoned, won’t alter U.S.-Great Britain relations because that relationship is built more upon shared interests and values rather than people.
“I profoundly believe in the special relationship,” he said. “I was very happy to find as prime minister how genuine and vigorous it was. And it is not about any two people. The relationship doesn’t depend on the two people in office. It basically depends on the shared interests, the shared values and the shared history we have. I feel that will be the case with the new prime minister and the new president.”
Cameron also said President-elect Trump’s position on terrorism is correct.
“The truth is,” he said, “Trump is absolutely right, that we have to defeat ISIL militarily,” adding that world leaders cannot allow the terrorist group to continue to have access to weapons and money and create a situation “so threatening to our countries.”
Military defeat alone, he cautioned, will not be enough.
“There is a much broader struggle,” Cameron said, viewing the West waging war against Islam as “a complete mistake” for “the vast majority” of Islamic members practice peacefully, he said.
Cameron said there were strong similarities in both the election of Trump and the Brexit vote – both coming about as the result of people feeling left behind in a rapidly-changing world.
“We know immigration has benefited both our countries,” he said. “But we need a system of control. And we may not need a wall, but we do need borders that work and are seen to work. We need that in Europe, just as in the United States.
“Others will fill the vacuum if America is not there,” Cameron said. “You can look around the world and see those strongmen leaders, see places like Russia, and think they get things done quicker. Actually they don’t.
“People want to live in the UK or the U.S. They believe they have the keys to unlock the values.”
He insisted that neither Brexit nor the election of Trump should mean a retreat from the world.
“The greatest question is clearly this: Does the Brexit vote and the election of your president mean an end to globalization? I would say very clearly, no.”
Cameron also strongly urged all Americans, Donald Trump included, to respect what he termed “incredibly precious” and the greatest of American values – “freedom and tolerance and optimism.”
“You don’t need a former British prime minister to tell you this,” Cameron offered the DePauw audience. “But have confidence in the values that made this country so great and you won’t go far wrong in the future.”